We have a duty towards music, namely, to invent it.

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.

One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.

My God, so much I like to drink Scotch that sometimes I think my name is Igor Stra-whiskey.

Art is the opposite of chaos. Art is organized chaos.

Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa Lobos?

Film music should have the same relationship to the film drama that somebody's piano playing in my living room has on the book I am reading.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?

I take no pride in my artistic talents; they are God-given and I see absolutely no reason to become puffed up over something that one has received.

For your full deliverance from your yesterday and your past, God gave you a new field of activity —your calling, so that you can start working according to His plan

What the culture of get rich quick does to our people is People want to get something for nothing.

That’s the way life is sometimes: you can fix things up, but you can’t make them all better.

There wasn't in the beginning. It wasn't until your kind discovered what was happening that any resistance started. That seems to be the key—knowing what’s going to happen.

If I have to choose between you and me - I like me better.

My children have no prejudices at all. My own brother-in-law is Jewish!

I am one of the heretics who believes that art must be enjoyed first and analyzed later.

I mean, Manhattan is cool. But weird parts, I like that. Jamaica, Queens, that's great.

We obviously can't compete with the big clubs trying to sign world class stars, but we've already identified some very good players and we'll see what happens.

Read a lot, finding out what kind of writing turns you on, in order to develop a criterion for your own writing. And then trust it-and yourself.